The Ohio band THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA are gaining prominence but are determined to stay God-focussed. Tony Cummings reports.

The Devil Wears Prada

In a field as crowded as Christian hard music few bands have risen to national prominence with the speed at which the metalcore unit from Dayton, Ohio, The Devil Wears Prada have managed it. The band's 2006 debut album for Rise Records 'Dear Love: A Beautiful Discord' and the 2007 follow up 'Plagues' built them an enthusiastic fanbase and now with the larger Ferret Music behind them The Devil Wears Prada are clearly on the cusp of bigger things with the US release by Ferret Music of 'With Roots Above and Branches Below' set for April. Despite their success they group are determined to stay grounded. Jeremy DePoyster told HM magazine, "We're constantly being shown on a daily basis that, anytime we get too confident, God kind of yanks things away from us and gives us a show like we're kids or something. It's like, 'Oh, okay, we need to get back to what's really important.'"

Formed in 2005 the group consists of Mike Hranica (vocals), Jeremy DePoyster (guitar), Chris Rubey (guitar), James Baney (keys), Andy Trick (bass) and Daniel Williams (drums). As they've told a hundred interviewers, the group did NOT take their name from the highly successful movie starring Meryl Streep but from the Lauren Weisberger novel on which it was based. Chris Rubey explained the scenario to absolutepunk.com: "I saw the name of the book, before it was huge (as far as we all knew at the time). So we were like, well it has a pretty cool ring to it, and we can put our own spin on the name when people ask us about it (having to do with materialism not being an important part of life). So we went with the name, being fully aware of all of the other bands with 'book names'. About as soon as we signed to Rise the book seemed to blow up and became the movie and all that. It was nuts. We never expected that."

He continued, "As far as changing our name, sure we've thought about it. We never wanted it to become a movie or a bestseller, but it did, and we are just seeing how things go. We haven't had any legal problems as of yet. The worst is when people discredit us just because of our name. Sure, if they don't like our music, that's fine, but it really sucks when someone won't give us a chance because 'we don't even have enough creativity to think of an original name.'" Apparently Lauren Weisberger has never contacted the band. Commented Chris, "I'd actually be interested to hear what she had to say about us."

Chris gave a quick rundown on the band's early history: "We started jamming and trying to find the right sound and the right guys to play in the band with us. After quite a while of playing and writing we played our first show in October of 2005 with a fill-in bassist and one guitarist. Shortly after Jeremy and Andy came along and we solidified the current lineup. So technically we've been around with the same lineup and playing shows for around a year and a half. We ended up recording our EP with Joey Sturgis who saw us at a show in his hometown in Indiana. Rise liked the EP and wanted to put it out. We weren't fully satisfied with it and didn't want to put out an EP so we re-worked it, re-recorded it and added some tracks and made 'Dear Love: A Beautiful Discord', and that came out in August (2006)."

The following August Rise Records put out another album, 'Plagues'. Mike told hirewiredaze.com about the project. "It's obviously a biblical reference in Revelation in that plagues straighten out humanity - and things of that nature. We chose that because it was very visually appealing as well. Obviously that's not as important as the meaning we put in behind it, but it was basically for a lot of biblical references and to tie that into the record name - that's what we were trying to go for."

Mike explained about his lyric writing. "[They're] based a lot on what I see in the world - problems with the world that I see. People that I know and people that I think kind of let go of what they believed in and compromised what they believed in. Those personal relationship types of lyrics worked into some songs and all had something to do with God - and everything has the strong foundation of having to do with God."

By the time of 'Plagues'' release the band were zigzagging across America as part of the Sounds Of The Underground Tour. Right from the off the band decided that they were going to make references to their faith onstage. Mike Hranica told hirewiredaze.com, "We were warned not to - but we did every single show, like always - because I think God would be ashamed if we didn't. Like what kind of Christian wouldn't say that because of a certain crowd? It's the most idiotic thing in the world! You're supposed to tell everyone and not be ashamed to anyone. Primarily people that don't even believe in God - that's the people you should be preaching to." Added Jeremy DePoyster, "He has a lyric that says, 'Don't be ashamed of your faith.' So it would be kind of hypocritical if we sang that and then didn't say anything about it." Continued Mike, "We definitely received flack from it on that tour. Got flipped off and some stuff thrown at us. We're alive, so who cares?"

Signing with Ferret Music has been a key moment for The Devil Wears Prada. Said DePoyster, "We had a few talks with some major labels but that really doesn't fit the mould of what we've done as a band. We kind of do everything ourselves in our own way. Especially being a Christian band on secular labels, it's really important that we don't have somebody telling us what to say or what not to say about faith-based stuff. We kind of felt more comfortable with Ferret where it's a bigger label and they have a lot more resources - they can do a lot more for us - but still an independent label, where we still have full control over our image. . . what songs we use and everything like that."

For their first Ferret release, 'With Roots Above And Branches Below', the band decided to work again with Joey Sturgis, the producer of their first two projects. Explained Jeremy, "We had a bunch of dudes that we were talking to [about producing] and we could have fit 'em all within our budget, I think. But for us, everything we've done in the band has been kind of weird. We're just kind of on a more DIY level, we get all our own crew ourselves and we try to handle all that stuff ourselves and we did our last two records [with Joey]. We did 'em basically in the garage and you wouldn't really expect it from hearing 'em or seeing 'em or anything like that, but that was the environment we did 'em in and it was actually a real comfortable environment, because we became really good friends with Joey and we could do basically what we wanted with the record.

"I was kind of scared that, if we went with somebody else - maybe a Hollywood style or somebody in one of these bigger studios, it might be too sterile of an environment for us to do what we really wanted to do. We're not the kind of band that goes into the studio with a really unpolished record of 12 songs and says, 'Here, produce these and make these really, really good songs for us.' When we go into a studio, what comes out in the end is really similar to what we go in with, just because we have such a long writing process and we really kick each other's butts about what songs are being played and transitions and stuff like that. I kind of just felt like it was a combination of: it would be too sterile if we went with somebody else; we wouldn't be comfortable enough to get a good, solid record out; and I really trust Joey and he's always had the best sound for us and I know that he understands exactly where we're coming from as a band, just because he's been involved with us since our first demo recording. It just kind of makes sense, I guess."